


between

by slinkhard (merrymelody)



Category: Harry Potter RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-14
Updated: 2012-07-14
Packaged: 2017-11-09 23:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/459611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrymelody/pseuds/slinkhard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written about ten years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	between

Tom doesn’t spend much time with Dan.

He’s a sweet kid, funny, and he clearly worships Tom, which is an ego boost, even though he’s usually uncomfortable with attention – this rich famous boy, who Tom knows lots of girls at school fancy, think he’s great.

However, Dan is occupied almost all the hours of the day – if he’s not rehearsing, he’s studying, or being eyed protectively by his assistants, minder or parents, who look torn between stepping into the limelight themselves and locking their baby in a tower.

Tom hates the limelight.

When he was small, it was great fun acting – showing off and getting paid for it, meeting celebrities, travelling. But as he got older, he became more self-conscious. People at school took the piss. Girls, even. 

He wants to be cool, but more than that; he wants to be normal. He wants to smoke in the bike sheds, sneak into clubs, fish on the weekends.

He doesn’t get much press attention, which suits him. 

That’s focused on the younger ‘trio’, the reason he avoids them (well, that and it doesn’t look good to hang out with kids all the time, like a baby. And Rupert’s a bit boring, Emma’s obnoxious, and even Dan gets on his nerves with his shy and retiring crap. If you’re that shy for fuck’s sake, quit. Put your money where your mouth is, like me; thinks Tom, knowing perfectly well that none of them can leave ‘til the films stop, no matter what they are reassured by their families and the crew.)

Girls fawning over him because he’s been in the films are mad, he thinks. His hometown treats him like nothing, which is the way he likes it. Honestly, these sad people, trading information over the internet on someone they know nothing about; makes him nervous, and he feels like they know it and hates them even more. At least he sticks to real people.

He knows that for all his reticence, he’s a little too eager to assert his maturity, to hang around with the big boys, the ones on the sideline, casual of the whole filming thing. His character is too big to really be one of the gang, but ‘Draco’ is also too minor to be part of the press junket that the self-styled ‘Trio’ constantly engage in, and for all his hard man act, he does want people to like him, and have someone other than the mumsy PAs to hang out with, when his ever present brother’s absent. 

Tom teases him about getting a job and a life of his own, but it reassures him to have someone in his corner just for him, in case nosy reporters want to chat or the producers want to nag. He’d never call Chris an official assistant like Daniel, who has three, which Tom knows, embarrasses him, although Emma and Rupert are envious. But he and Chris know that the amount of time Chris spends there would probably qualify.

Tom has three elder brothers, and what with the acting; he’s used to dealing with boys over girls, adults over children. He watches from the sidelines sometimes, and sees Dan and Rupert mucking about and thinks about how immature they are at two years younger. 

The blokes at school’d laugh at them. A ging and a poncy Fulham stage school brat. 

He’d like a friend though, a proper one, on set. 

Occasionally he fishes with Jamie W and Josh, although their shorter schedule means that like their characters, they’re a pair. 

Plus, all three of them know Tom is the more ‘important’ of the three. They probably think of him as the show-off - the child actor, the one with the most experience in the ‘kiddie cast’, as Alan refers to it patronisingly.

He makes do with Sean, Jamie and Chris (confusing when he refers to him, but Christian’s full name is a bit formal); although he knows they’ll probably all be gone next year. So he’s the baby again, listening intently as they joke around, satisfied with their secondary roles, actually pleased with the attention they get from screaming girls. 

This mystifies him. He’s no poof (despite growing up around them – it’s the norm in the acting biz, even nowadays), but squealing girls with their cameras don’t do anything for him. 

He wanks off, of course, to porn (lots around to steal when you’ve got big brothers), girl porn before you get clever, mind. The odd picture of Angelina Jolie, too, if you must know. Perfectly normal. 

He’s got off with girls too, sometimes when an obviously star-struck girl is giving him the eye, one in the grey area between filming PS and CoS when he could convince himself she’d never heard of him, despite her too coy questions about which school he goes to.

His character in the films is embarrassing anyway, that’s half the reason he’s grown sick of acting. 

Wearing stupid costumes, shrieking and running around was a laugh when he was a kid; but he’s aware now, of what people think, and how he looks; his spots; his stupid bleached gelled greasy hair; his skinny girlie limbs; his playing netball at school rather than football up until last year; his crooked teeth, which cause him to lisp into his teens; and his posh accent, which he works on modifying into a guttural Essex-style slur, but he knows his ‘Surrey stockbroker belt’ origins show through, and it’s sound like a knobby poof or sound like an idiot, like he did on his DVD interview. 

He’s a fairly late bloomer, only now, at the same rate as the kids two years younger damn it, getting taller. 

He’s still uncomfortable around girls, tends to stutter.

He worries about it, ‘specially when it was in the paper. Maybe he hasn’t learn to deal with women, only men, maybe he’s a queer? But then queers are good at talking to women, so are the luvvies – look at Jason and Ken; calling everyone of either gender darling; and they’re married! 

His brother’s good at it too, but then he is gay – his brother, a fisherman, not an actor-type! He’s read the statistics about it running in the family, worriedly. Or had them informally presented to him on the playground, with all it’s attendant class: ‘Hey, Tom, your bruvvah’s one, yeah? Is it catching?’

He knows his mates are only joking but it still creeps him out, and sometimes he looks at Chris with new eyes, and sees his too bright clothes, his too fluttery eyelashes, the way he smiles, and it’s coming off him in waves, and what if it’s coming off Tom, too?

What if you add the acting; and the posh voice; and the pretty boy looks despite their teenage flaws (he tries to look macho in his promo shots, but his mum and the PA greet every photo with an affectionate ‘Ah, he looks like an angel’, even though he’s told them to shut up God knows how many times); and the fact he’s only kissed four girls even though he’s relatively famous, but he’s still a virgin; and the fact he made that stupid joke about loving Dan really, and he knows it’s on the Internet, where anyone could see it, that’s he’s gay.

And the way he follows Chris, Sean and Jamie around faithfully, making the his mum to worriedly remind him not to be so keen to grow up, while Jason cattily talks about romances on set to Alan, who laughs along because he hates everyone; and Chris, Sean and Jamie exchange looks; (he thought they were ‘What a wannabe’ looks, at the time, and just grinned awkwardly and probably foolishly) and get him to fetch the tea when the PA’s on break.

And the one time some bloke he didn’t know winked at him, and why did he do that? Did he think Tom was one of them? Is it something he’s doing, or does he just look like one? Aren’t they supposed to be able to tell their own?

Another time he typed in Draco Malfoy to a search engine and he found loads of pretend stories, too many to read them all, but stories about his character having sex with blokes, and there were pictures of him on the sites, in costume, staring at Dan, the way he’s supposed to, it’s his fucking job, and it’s supposed to be a glare, is he as fucking shit as acting as he suspected, if they’re getting it this wrong? 

Or are they getting it right and his view is the one that’s fucked up?

He typed in his name, too, and then, looking over his shoulder nervously, the word ‘gay’, and there are links, to stories and comments from girls (at least he assumes they’re girls. God, he hopes so.) And they’re talking about him. Tom. Not Draco, or his hairstyle, or the heated glares, or even Daniel, staring at his crotch like some fucking poof, oh he can see that’s obvious, now he looks at their oh-so-fucking-carefully laid out evidence, what do they think, they’re fucking detectives? God, have they not got jobs or lives of their own? Probably dykes, not hot ones like in the movies, but bitter ones, like The Mail’s always ranting about; projecting their fantasies onto him. 

But his mum’s always said women have their own special intuition. Of course, he knows fuck all about women, but then that’s normal isn’t it! He’s fifteen (‘almost sixteen’ a nagging voice reminds him), for fuck’s sake!

He feels like they’re all staring at him somehow, as he reads stories about he fucks Dan, and he can’t tell anyone, in case they look at him more closely, in case they say ‘You know, they might have a point, you’ve never been very good with girls, never even been very interested in them.’ Or ‘You can tell us or your brothers anything, Tom, if you’re hiding something, or if there’s anything that worries you.’

And he absolutely can’t tell anyone, even if they agreed that the stories were sick, and the writers were wrong, even if they said ‘They’re mad, Tom, don’t worry about them’ or even if they said ‘Look, they call all the others gay, too. Look, they do it to Dan, and Sean, and those actors, look, the ones in Lord of the Rings.’ (Although, oh God, they probably are, all of them, it’s like everyone he knows is, like they’re surrounding him, infecting him.)

Even if he knew they’d reassure him, he couldn’t tell anyone that he saw them.

Couldn’t tell them that he read just the warnings, turned off the computer without even shutting it down properly, just yanking out the power cord, shuts himself in the bathroom, thinking about fucking men and men fucking him, although he doesn’t know whether it’s him or Draco, and he jerks off quickly, his face red, and afterwards looks at the mess all over his stomach and hand; and throws up on the pink fluffy toilet seat cover.  
He goes out that night, with the lads as always (he fleetingly considers this, but lets it go, surely hanging around with all girls would be gayer?)

He gets slobberingly drunk, on beer and cheap cider they bribed Sammy’s brother to buy from the local offie, (none of them dare try themselves since Tom was in The Sun for trying to get served while filming; but within reason, there’s never anything Tom wants that he can’t get, which they all know, and likely resent); drunk in the deserted park, sitting on the swings and smoking Benson and Hedges inexpertly.

He gets red-faced (again), sweaty and slurry and pukes again before long, but doesn’t care, and gets off with three girls that night, slappers who come down the park to have a spliff and giggle at the boys who inevitably slag them off but turn up every night like clockwork.

His stinking breath in their hot mouths, tongue probing clumsily. They’ve had better, but ignore this, something’s better than nothing, and this bloke is famous, if only in a very minor, Big Brother/Pop Idol kind of way. It’s something to boast about at the pubs their elder sisters sneak them into. Afterwards they chew sweet strawberry flavoured Hubba Bubba and pass round Superking menthols – dire cigs, but they rid their mouths of the taste before they have to meet their boyfriends.

Sammy high-fives Tom when he stumbles back over. 

“Alright, mate, three birds and it’s only midnight.” 

He peers over. 

“They’re quite fit, actually.” 

Tom grimaces, he feels sick – too much beer, and the last girl’s strong perfume has turned his stomach.

Steve chimes in “Yeah, was beginning to think you weren’t into all that,” and leers. 

The lads all laugh.

Tom storms off, not bothering to take the girls’ numbers or even say goodbye. 

Thankfully home is a mere street away, although his mum will be livid with him in the morning, when he’s in a fit state to converse – about the state of her bathroom, for one. 

But for now, Tom lies on his bed, dustbin nearby, and thinks about when he can quit the fucking acting business he knows is to blame for all this, and can fish in peace. 

He likes to fish. It gives him time to sort out his thoughts.


End file.
